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January 16, 2022

Remix SaaS kit v0.0.1 - QuickStart & Core Concepts

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Remix SaaS kit v0.0.1 - QuickStart & Core Concepts

Thank you for trying out my Remix SaaS kit! I did not expect so many downloads, so I thought I should make this Quickstart Tutorial.

If you like what you got, consider giving it a 5-star on Gumroad :).

Introducing Remix SaaS kit v1.

Remix SaaS kit v1

1) Core Concepts

Before you follow the tutorial, I want you to know why I built it the way it is.

1.1) Tenant

I wanted to make an app where 1 email could have multiple accounts, like Notion.

A Tenant has its own:

  • Stripe Customer ID - Created at /register

  • Stripe Subscription ID - Created at /app/settings/subscription

  • Tenant Members - Created at /app/settings/members

  • Workspaces - Created at /app/settings/workspaces

1.2) Workspace

This depends on your SaaS implementation. For example, I have a SaaS where the Workspace is a Legal Company, and another one where each Workspace represents the Current Project. It's up to you.

A Workspace has its own:

  • Workspace Members

  • Links to other Workspaces

  • Employees

You can delete this in your implementation, but it's there if you need it.

I wanted to make a SaaS where my users could like accounts with other users. For example, Workspace X from Tenant A, wants to share information with Workspace Z from Tenant B. On this implementation, there's a direction, where one Workspace is a Provider and the other one a Client.

A Link has its own:

  • Contracts

1.4) Contracts

You can delete this in your implementation, but it's there if you need it.

On every SaaS kit, I implemented a Contracts app, on which two linked workspaces can share 1 contract, and it belongs to both of them. Also, you can see how PDF upload/preview work.

A Contract references:

  • Linked Workspace Members

  • Current Workspace Employees

1.5) Employee

Simple CRUD demo.

1.6) TenantId, WorkspaceId, and LinkId fields

Since this boilerplate is designed to support multiple tenants, each with its own workspaces, you have to implement these fields (on your prisma calls) on every Entity you create, hence the Contracts and Employees demo. I plan to implement an automatic way of doing this, subscribe or follow me to stay tuned!


2) Quickstart Tutorial

Follow these steps to see what Remix SaaS kit can do.

2.1) Requirements:

2.2) Git

Open the downloaded project folder (I'm using VSCode), open a Terminal and run:

git init
git add .
git commit -am "initial"

2.3) Environment file:

Rename the .env.example file to just .env.

.env file

Update the REMIX_SESSION_SECRET value to something secure (like abc123).

Set the REMIX_ADMIN_EMAIL with your email and something random for REMIX_ADMIN_PASSWORD.

Credentials

Get your Stripe Secret Key and set it to REMIX_STRIPE_SK.

Stripe Secret Key (use your own)

Open your Postmark Servers Dashboard, select or create your server, click on API Tokens and set it to REMIX_POSTMARK_SERVER_TOKEN.

Postmark Test Server (use your own)

(Optional) Open your Formspree Forms Dashboard, select or create your form, click on Integration, and set the Form's endpoint to REMIX_INTEGRATIONS_CONTACT_FORMSPREE.

Formspree Test Form (use your own)

Up to this point, you should have only 1 commit:

.env.example was renamed to .env, but .env is ignored by git

2.4) Database:

I highly recommend building your app first with SQLite, then moving to something like PostgreSQL/MySQL.

If you're not using SQLite, identify your database connection string format and set it to the DATABASE_URL environment variable.

PostgreSQL URL format

IMPORTANT: If you're using Supabase and you will host your app on a Serverles environment like Vercel or AWS Lambda, use the Connection Pooling String as specified here. As you can see, use the normal PostgreSQL connection string when creating, migrating, and seeding the database with Prisma, but use the Connection Pooling String when deploying to a Serverless environment.

Open the schema.prisma file, and set the corresponding database provider (sqlite, postgresql, mysql, sqlserver, mongodb, or cockroachdb).

Since I'm using Supabase, I set postgresql

Run the first migration and seed the database using this command:

npx prisma migrate dev --name init

You should get the following output:

Prisma Migration and Seed

If for any reason, the migration was created successfully but did not seed the database, use the following command:

npx prisma db seed

If you mess up the database, you can always reset it with Prisma, or drop the tables manually:

Drop Tables

DROP TABLES Script:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "_prisma_migrations";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "Joke";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "ContractMember";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "ContractActivity";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "ContractEmployee";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "Contract";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "Employee";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "Link";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "SubscriptionFeature";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "SubscriptionPrice";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "SubscriptionProduct";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "TenantUserInvitationWorkspace";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "TenantUserInvitation";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "WorkspaceUser";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "Workspace";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "TenantUser";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "Tenant";
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS "User";

Up to this point, you should have 3 commits:

Files generated by the Prisma migration

2.4) App:

If you haven't already, install the dependencies:

npm install

Run the application:

npm run dev

Open https://localhost:3000, you should see the landing page:

Dark mode landing page

Click on the Dark/Light mode Toggle:

Light mode landing page

Get rid of the <TopBanner /> component, or customize it if you're advertising something, like me (other SaaS kits).

TopBanner.tsx component (used on root.tsx)

Go to the /pricing page and click on Go to /admin/pricing.

NOTE: Before we persist the Prices to the database, you can play with the pricing by modifying the plans.server.ts file.

Warning Banner - prices are being loaded from a file, not from your database

Log in as your admin user. If successful, it will redirect you with a Session Cookie to /admin/pricing.

Here we can persist the prices to our database and to our Stripe account by clicking the orange button.

Admin: Pricing management (CREATE only, you cannot UPDATE nor DELETE)

NOTE: If you've persisted the prices to your DB and Stripe, but you want to make a change, you could manually DELETE the records on the following tables: "SubscriptionFeature", "SubscriptionPrice" and "SubscriptionProduct".

DELETE pricing script

Now that our prices exist, go to /register and create a sample account (with a real email to get the Welcome email).

Register page

You should get a welcome email.

Welcome email

You will be redirected to the Dashboard:

Dashboard

That's all you need to get started using the boilerplate. And of course, you could also follow the README.md file.

Early Access

Click here to get -50 off, for a limited time only.

Subscribe or follow me to stay tuned!


Feel free to comment below if you have any questions.

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